A Cake Baked With Chocolate and Hatred
by Xennariel
Summary: Riza is having a bad day and Roy is completely oblivious until it's too late.


This was a prompt request sent to me by an anon on Tumblr. I already posted another prompt drabble today, but I got this one finished faster than I thought so I decided to just post it before I forgot about it. Enjoy!

 **19 - I would say this cake was baked with love, but I had a bad day so it's baked with chocolate and hatred.**

Riza Hawkeye was having a terrible day and it was Roy's fault. Mostly.

When Riza woke up that Monday morning, one of the worst headaches she'd had in a long time made it near impossible to open her eyes to even the meager amount of light pouring in through the cracks in her curtains.

That was when annoyance number two made itself apparent to her. It was raining. Not that that was a horrible thing, it just meant she would have to be extra cautious watching the colonel's back that day if they ended up getting called on any last minute missions.

Having such a bad headache wasn't going to help in that department.

Slowly, she eased out of bed, rubbing her head as she shuffled to the bathroom to shower and change for work. Hayate was waiting patiently for his breakfast when she entered the kitchen to make a cup of tea and take some painkillers and she pat him on the head before filling his bowl.

She went to grab an umbrella on her way out the door so Roy wouldn't be without one since he always somehow managed to forget his own, only to find her umbrella was not where it should have been. Then she remembered she lent it to the colonel last week and he had yet to return it, so _she_ was in fact the one without an umbrella that day. Sighing in annoyance, she held her coat over her head and hurried out into the rain.

By the time Hawkeye arrived at the office, her boots and the bottoms of her pants were soaked. Her boots made annoying squeaky sounds on the tile as she walked and the sloshing of wet socks was grating on her nerves. She'd have to change to different boots and pants from the spare uniform she kept in her locker at work, but as she made her way to the women's locker room, she remembered that she just had her spare uniform cleaned, but had forgotten it at work on Friday so it was still in the office. The rain had made her later than usual so she would only have enough time to change before needing to start work. There was no time for her to get her uniform, go change at the women's locker room, then come back, so she'd have to change quickly in Roy's inner office.

That would prove to be a mistake on her part.

She'd later blame the headache for her not thinking to lock the door.

In walked Roy Mustang just as she was pulling her spare uniform pants over her hips. Roy blinked at her a few times, disbelieving what he was seeing, before a slow grin spread across his face. He was about to make some snarky remark about her being his birthday present in a poorly timed attempt to flirt with her, but the extremely displeased and annoyed look she shot him cut him off before he could utter a word. It wasn't anything he hadn't seen before, but under the circumstances, she was not at all happy with the way her day was going and was having none of his usual ridiculous flirtatious shenanigans. She glared and threw her boot at him, which he barely dodged as he ran out the door, sputtering halfhearted apologies as he went.

The morning dragged on and the rain cleared up as it neared lunch time, a fact which Roy was grateful for as he had a "date" during his lunch break and hadn't shut up about it all morning. If Riza didn't know better and thought these dates were something other than information drops, she would have been even more annoyed and found some way to keep him from going on said date, maybe burying him in the paperwork he so loved putting off. Instead, she ignored it, more annoyed that he wasn't doing his work as opposed to be annoyed at his topic of discussion.

She also wanted to wipe the stupid grin off his face whenever he made eye contact with her, knowing he was thinking about walking in on her earlier. The glares she was giving him didn't seem to be working as well as they usually did because he wouldn't stop looking at her and she was positive he had even winked at her at one point. Oh he was pushing his luck today, that was for sure.

When Roy returned after lunch, he still did not even attempt do his paperwork, choosing instead to have an argument with Havoc over who had the better date for that evening. Apparently Roy's lunch date wasn't the only one he was going on that day, a fact he said was due to it being his birthday, when really it was because the particular sister he met at lunch needed to leave early, so they agreed to meet later to finish their information exchange.

Riza silently fumed. Having already done her share of the paperwork that day, she was not happy about having to do Roy's too, especially when her headache was not letting up. And while Roy had been out to lunch, Riza stayed in the office to continue working, forgoing getting any food for herself due to her pen breaking and leaking ink all over the work on her desk, forcing her to redo it all. It was just another thing to tack on to the list of things going wrong for her that day. So not only did she still have a headache, she was hungry to boot.

Roy left an hour early for his date, whistling as he exited the office, blissfully unaware of his lieutenant's foul mood, and the rest of the men filed out later, leaving Riza alone in the office after hours finishing the paperwork Roy didn't do and mentally cursing him, making a note to find some way to punish him for being ignorant the whole day. It being his birthday was no excuse for him to slack off even more than normal.

Her having to stay late to finish work would almost be a kind of punishment for Roy. Riza always baked a cake for him on his birthday. It was a tradition that dated back to when he was an apprentice under her father and a young Roy Mustang had been melancholy all day until she asked him what was wrong. When he told her he missed his family and the cake his aunt used to buy him from the local bakery he loved, young Riza took it upon herself to bake him a cake, and did so every year from that point on until he left to join the military. The only years she didn't make him a cake were the when he was at the military academy, when she was at the academy, and when they were in Ishval. When she had been assigned to work under him as his adjutant, she brought the tradition back and had kept it going every year since.

It was a sentimental thing between them and if Roy didn't get a cake, she knew he would be disappointed if not outright sad, though he'd probably not say anything about it. And it was a tradition Riza didn't want to break anyway, even if she _was_ angry with him.

When she finally finished her work for the day, it was already an hour later than she had originally planned to be home and Roy was supposed to meet at her place within the hour. She sighed as she exited Headquarters. The colonel would just have to wait if he still wanted a cake from her.

Roy arrived at Riza's place right on time and Riza had just finished frosting the cake when he knocked on her door, Hayate barking at the sudden noise until she hushed him before answering the door. Roy's smile was bright when he saw her.

"Good evening, Lieutenant," he said as he bent down to pet Hayate before stepping into the tiny apartment.

"Colonel," Riza nodded at him, straight faced and still clearly frustrated by the day's events.

Roy frowned a bit.

"You okay?" he asked, following her to her kitchen table.

Riza didn't answer and brought out the cake she made for him and set it on the table.

"I would say this cake was baked with love, but I had a bad day so it's baked with chocolate and hatred."

Roy took an involuntary step back at that, cringing a little as it was apparent she was in a worse mood than he initially thought.

Riza began describing her day as she cut a piece of cake for each of them. The more she spoke, the more Roy's face fell. He did notice she was having a bad day, but he hadn't realized _how_ bad it had been, or that _he_ was the main reason her day had been so bad, and he suddenly felt guilty for not seeing it sooner. She was right, it being his birthday really was not a good enough excuse to not get any work done at all. That was pretty bad, even for him. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't done _any_ paperwork during a work day.

He felt even worse when she pointed out that instead of working, he had been talking about dates and going on said dates. The woman he adored had been having a terrible time and he had done nothing but talk about other women right in front of her. Roy's posture slumped and his frown deepened. Looking away from Riza, he glanced at her bed in the corner, eyeing the pillows resting there. An idea came to him and he looked back at her in thought before going over to the bed and retrieving one of her pillows, holding it out to her. Riza stared at him in confusion for a moment before he explained.

"Go ahead," he said. "Hit me."

Riza looked flabbergasted.

"What? But it's your birthday…"

"Which is exactly why you should do what I'm asking."

Riza stared for a few moments longer before taking the pillow from his outstretched hand. She stepped closer to him and proceeded to whap him multiple times in the face, arms, and chest with the pillow.

"Okay, okay!" he exclaimed, falling onto her bed as he tried to back away from her. When she paused, he looked up at her and sent her a tentative grin. "Better?"

Riza looked thoughtful then shook her head.

"Not quite," she said, beating him a few more times with the pillow and finally ending with a whap upside his head. "Okay, that's better."

 **000000**

I liked this enough that I might make a continuation of this scene for my longer Royai fic, but anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one! I had fun with it.


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